Map Thread XX
- Thread starter Balkanized U.S.A
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11.68 million? That seems far too low...though it's not out of the realm of belief that 27/8 could be a euphemism for a localized nuclear exchange in America. Though I'm surprised that didn't spiral out into global nuclear war.
Not to be That Guy, but uh... the similarities are very difficult to miss with this map.
The more things change, the more they stay the same...
From my upcoming project 'Let There Be Light'
The main similarity I see between the two maps is that they both seem to depict a rump U.S. government that's gone into exile on the West Coast, which isn't exactly the most niche concept all things considered.
Ok so it's not just me. I also thought this was pretty similar to a ksituan map but couldn't put my finger on it.
There are many similarities, such as the elevation of minor and obscure cities in OTL, like Fort Defiance, Vernal, Hailey, Telluride, Afton, and Alamosa.
The borders in former Colorado are very nearly identical, the Arizona-Pueblo border is the same as the Arizona-Tierra Amarillo one, very many of the cities and placenames chosen are the same...
The Great American Desert and emigration to safer countries has definitely taken its toll.
27/8 is the Australian term for what is in North America known as 8/26, the day global nuclear war happened
Its a similar idea but I was trying to steer away from Ksituans America, but several borders and towns came from justifiable conclusions if most of the United States is reliant on small river valleys in the high areas of the west. The borders reflect a population center and its closest hinterlands. I will absolutely go for different borders and locations if there is judged to be too much similarity
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It’s not the same map even if there’s similarities and the map in this thread is connected to a timeline. So I don’t see the problem.
WORLD/CITY
A continuation from: https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/map-thread-xx.492239/post-21261062TL,DR: An ASB builds an enormous city covering all of Denmark and makes all of humanity live in it. Each real-world city is recreated as one or more towers in the World/City.
West Scranton, PA
Population: 37,240
Scranton, PA was divided into two towers during the Urbanization. West Scranton Tower is shown here. The ASB called the other tower "North Scranton Tower". It's not good at naming things, apparently.
Somewhat more cramped than Star Valley Tower, but still nice. The tower features a number of interior parks and gardens, but is not quite so open as Star Valley Tower. Generally, the ASB turned rural areas into smaller but more open towers. Denser areas were converted into more monolithic towers. The industrially suburban Scranton retained much of that feel when it was Urbanized by the ASB. This tower is actually four structurally separate towers which connect every 50 floors. This increases the total number of residences with a window on an exterior wall. Some residences have only interior-facing windows. People who found themselves in these units at the Urbanization were people who lived in homes and apartments with decidedly terrible views pre-Urbanization, so at least this was a lateral move.
Any paper companies brought along during the Urbanization have since gone out of business due to extreme mismanagement. The agricultural tower to the north of West Scranton Tower hosts a small, family-operated hydroponic beet farm.
Settling down in a displaced world
Hello there miserable people, this is a cover of Royal Psycho’s Very Displaced as part of a contest. Feel free to check out other submissions and vote for which one you think is the best. Anyway, without further ado...
The age of the empire is over.
These words have been spoken across the world in defiance to the brutal empires formed by people who moved across continents, devastating them and replacing their populations with those of their own. Now, many of the empires have fallen from grace. Gothicurhom was the first to go, as the Latins, Gauls, Greeks and Slavs feasted on its corpse, followed by Hueintal shrinking into a smaller nation, Hoomikalaal losing its control over Samuseen, Etikurun’s vassals liberating themselves, the Turkish warriors throwing Tianren and Mamlak’alud into chaos and most recently a power struggle that nearly tore Mo’Nui apart. The empires of the world are dying, but it seems that new ones are taking their place.
The year is 2100, although technology is more or less similar to that of the 2010’s. Space travel beyond the moon is virtually nonexistent, although there was a kinda orbital weapons race during the 2040’s back when the empires were a thing. Handheld browsing devices have managed to become common, although there is no worldwide internet, with most nations controlling and censoring their own network to keep the populations in line. Genetic technology is well ahead of OTL, with many nations now using more humane methods to conduct ethnic cleansing.
There are still several genocides going around this world, after all, why would the world even look like this? There are the final exterminations of indigenous people in the Amazon, Congo, Arctic and Papua, ‘controlled purification breeding’ in Muiaka, some ethnic cleansing of Chinese going on in the Sudan, a lot more of that happening in the Ganges valley, Malay islanders slowly being driven into labor camps and Iroquois ‘ethnic corrections’ in OTL Ukraine. Still, better than last century, am I right? The good news is that gene editing technology is slowly diffusing around the world using technology pioneered by the Far Country, which basically results in a person slowly having their facial features and skin color slowly change extremely painfully over a couple months.
Religion is kinda strange. Axial age religions never came about, with most people continuing to worship polytheistic religions, many of them home to really, really nasty gods. Human sacrifice is about as common as monotheism in OTL, with nearly every culture in the world doing it to some extent, even some rogue atheist communities do it to ‘finally liberate a person from the chokehold of religion’. Religion is actually not that big of a factor in this world, although ethnicity matters in all but a few cases.
This world is incredibly racist. It is not uncommon for people of a different skin tone and facial features to be beaten up on the streets. There are a couple states where diversity is kind of a thing, but these are always nations with a decently similar ethnic makeup, such as the nations of Ho’tek, Ntow Jow, Rimnitasia and Nurbek.
So, I hope you like how utterly horrifying this world is. Here is a world tour!
The land known as North America by us is now a power vacuum, with the now liberated kingdoms jousting for power.
Small but formidable, Esekwaee is a heavily populated and heavily industrialized nation, with a massive military centered around tank doctrine. The Kingdom of Esekwaee is descended from the Asante tribes of Africa, and it rules over a large number of autonomous vassal kingdoms, which have (forcefully) sworn an oath to the king of the East coast.
Esekwaee’s main rival is the massive Union of Greater Mandinka, a massive but relatively lightly populated county. Mandinka has captured a couple smaller states to the west, and controversially took control of an Asante kingdom in the OTL Huron peninsula, dragging it into a standoff with Esekwaee. Mandinka has forcefully imposed its culture all over the union, even into the far North, which has finally had its native inhabitants ‘cleaned up’.
While Mandinka tries to impose its Malian-like culture, Ntow Jow revels in multiculturalism. The empire is made up of hundreds of Bantu ethnic groups, based out of the incredibly diverse city of Ntow Jow. The Empire is an agricultural superpower, and trades with all of the Americas with its food. The Empire fields a considerable amount of vassal kingdoms, giving it immense political power.
Tendat is the fourth major power of North America, with a densely populated core around the OTL San Francisco bay. Tendat is a republic, a rare thing in this world, although this is a rather bizarre system where you buy votes from the state in place of taxes, which means oligarchs end up controlling the nation. Tendat is a strong seafaring nation, and has been setting up many bases in the Pacific.
Etikurun is still around, albeit in a smaller form. It tried to re-integrate some of its old vassals directly into the Kingdom, although the king is increasingly becoming a puppet of his advisors, one of which plans to rebuild the empire. The kingdom is slowly building up its forces, and has been doing shady stuff in the Caribbean.
Two other notable nations are the Federation of Kongum and Maharwedyn Kingdom. Kongum was a former confederation of city states that centralized while breaking free of Etikurun, and Maharwedyn is a union between two Somali kingdoms that wanted to build an empire. Both of these nations are extremely militaristic powers with the military slowly gaining power over the high council and the king respectively.
South America is probably the most ethnically homogeneous continent here, with the Polynesians basically absorbing most of the cultures. That did not stop the Usucachi dynasty of Mo’nui from seizing power, despite their alleged native roots (hey, the South Americans never ended up anywhere to my knowledge). The Usucachi seized Mo’nui in a brutal civil war, and have ironically been even more nastier to the surviving natives of the continent. The provinces of the country have been reorganized, and the kingdom is building up armies to counter the kingdoms of the East coast.
There are a lot of nations on the East coast of South America, some of them being run by power hungry warlords. In response to this, a couple small former vassal kingdoms united into the Hanalamu Confederation, a small but formidable alliance of city states and minor warlords. The Confederation has been booming recently, and they are ready to take a fight against the nearby warlords, then bring it all the way beyond the Andes.
The old dynasty in charge of Mo’nui is still alive, sort of. The kingdom of Mokulea is based around OTL Rio, and they have turned their little valley into a hard to crack kingdom fighting off warlords. The kingdom is essentially a military dictatorship now, with the king being a figurehead. However, there does happen to be a rather large naval fleet sent directly by the Usucachis headed straight for the city…
There is also the state of Muiaka in Patagonia, which is a mad scientist dictatorship, with clone armies, nuclear weapons and human perfection programs dictating all life. The leader of the country recently introduced a 77 year plan to take over the world. Eh.
Antarctica has been kinda colonized. The lack of any notable natural resources in this timeline made the big powers leave it alone, but that left a hardy group that served Mo’nui and even Muiaka for a short time managed to get to the OTL Falklands and South Georgia, and from there, Antarctica. This group were the Yaghan (or Fuegan) people, and they managed to carve out a living in the harshest of environments, basically building a strange civilization out of Seals, Penguins and Whales in absence of literally anything else. Most Yaghans live in the Falklands, but they are kind of boring with their modern technology and extreme xenophobia like everywhere else.
Europe is nasty, as always. Hueintal still exists, and has managed to establish a territorial core around OTL Constantinople, Italy and the Balkans, although shit is going on in Iberia. Hueintal has managed to reduce its military for now, and is currently working on securing what it has and consolidating power. The laws are still mainly the same, and the culture is even more Mesoamerican-supremacist now that the minorities are gone.
The three rising powers in the Americas are the Council of the 11 fires, a massive steppe based nation descended from great plains peoples (these guys have a motorized cavalry of half a million ‘war trucks’) the League of Haudenosaunee (guys who do spend waaay to much of their resources on GENOCIDE) and the State of Lhixiuh (literally a giant military where everything is directed toward national defense).
Seeing that they are surrounded by crazy nations, four states in Europe banded together to form the league of Ho’tek to defend against the insanity of the rest on the continent. All four of these nations are pretty nasty places to live, but far better than anything the rest of the continent has to offer. The Confederation of Bisahalani is basically the strongest one here, and it is really more of an alliance than a nation itself.
There are a couple other nations in North America that do their own thing. The Haida have created a little irrelevant nation in OTL Moldavia, which is ignored by everyone, although the Iroquois do seem a little thirsty for expansion. There is a weird council of Sun worshippers which took charge of the Caucasus, who speak with some secret language nobody knows about. They do seem to have an advanced military though, and raid the nearby territories for human sacrifice victims, which makes them a pain in the ass to their neighbors. The Caribs have managed to modernize, and they are actually a decently civilized nation today (if you ignore the fact that 25% of their population live in HUMAN FARMS).
Down into the Middle East we find the fractured realm of Tianren, which has learned the hard way how nasty this place is to Empires of this size. Tianren has managed to consolidate its borders around OTL Persia, where it has placed its capital. The country has been recently ‘sweeping up’ a lot of the massive bureaucracy that slows it down, adopting the model applied by the Goths in Tianren’s old homeland.
Shamgao is Tianren’s new rival. The people here have embraced the desert, and developed technologies to better help them live in the harsh environment. The country is based in Egypt, although recent developments occurring in the South of that place have resulted in plans to move the capital out of harm’s reach.
The Chinese have lost pretty much all their power in China. The Xiongnu broke free from Tianren a few decades ago, and waged a genocidal war over Tianren’s provinces in India, exterminating millions and staining the Yamuna, Ganges and the Indus red with blood. Most of India is now depopulated. The lack of population is not doing for the Huns, and the empire is very unstable these days. The collapse of their empire is pretty much inevitable.
The Shogunate of Yamatai is the second strongest nation in OTL India, and it is basically a replica of the OTL Tokugawa shogunate in India. Yamatai is increasingly playing a larger role in world affairs, and has a massively powerful industry. Yamatai is slowly pulling the Kingdom of Goryeo into its sphere, much to the dismay of the Korean locals.
The Songkhla Confederation is another nation in India, and is descended from Southeast Asians. Songkhla is looking to regain its old land to the East, and might actually get pretty close as the Xiongnu begin to disintegrate. There is also the Qianyi Republic, which is a minor Chinese merchant republic.
Tengrism has become one of the few politicized religions in the world. Several nations in the OTL Sahel and Arabia have embraced it as a state religion and began waging wars to spread it. Of course, many of these nations are Turkic, such as the Kingdom of Grand Turkoman, a strong and authoritarian power rising to threaten the middle east. The Turks have modernized rapidly, and now use some of the most advanced military hardware in the world to bring the world under the rule of the almighty lord of the infinite sky. With recent discoveries, they have kinda begun to believe the Earth’s atmosphere is a sentient entity beyond comprehension (the weather shows how it rewards and punishes people), and that the other planets of the solar system are ruled by their own sky/atmosphere gods, strongest of which is the universe itself.
The Tengrists cross borders between the former territories of Tianren and Mamlak’alud. The malikate is still alive, albeit in a pretty weak form in Southern Africa, being humiliated by Far Country of all nations. It has turned to being a little more religious and increased its human sacrifice quotas, hoping for salvation to come. Its former northern territories broke off and did their own thing, changing up their cultures to make them distinct from Mamlak’alud.
As stated before, the Far Country is doing really well, and is probably the best place to live in this world. Having a few resources to exploit (but enough to get by on) has made the people here crafty and inventive, slowly making it the technological powerhouse of the world. The Far Country has expanded its navy, and has even managed to occupy lands in Mamlak’alud as punishment for the Arab’s attempted invasion.
Meanwhile, in the Far East, a power is climbing out of its grave and re-asserting dominance. Using technology from the Far Country, a small but brutally efficient government, the National State of Gothicurhom has risen from the ashes of the dying Empire. It went on a brutal war against the Latinite Empire, retaking much of its old lands and more. The Goths plan on expanding their empire across the world, and retaking what was lost with insane levels of fanaticism and patriotism.
The Goths have to get through quite a bit though. To the East, the Gauls and Angles fight over the islands in this region, especially the prized island of OTL Taiwan. The Angles are increasingly beginning to ally with the Goths, although the Goths want the Island of Taiwan for themselves. What's left of the Latinites also put a pretty unsubstantiated claim. To the North, the Slavs have created an empire in the (maybe second) most brutal lands of the world, under an insane leader with a crazy personality cult (and also known for having a ton of concubines). The Duluskhaan khanate is also in the Goths crosshairs, and the Goths are tired of their raids.
The Latinites have had to watch their realm crumble just like Gothicorum did. Out of the mess came a lot of minor kingdoms, although they have now coalesced into several kingdoms. The Latinites are essentially a failed state at this point, with the military being the only thing holding the nation together. The king of the Latins has actually moved his residence away from the country into the kingdoms of the south.
There are many nations in OTL Southeast Asia. The largest of the mainland nations is the Kingdom of Fraunkia, which is very vaguely similar to France. It is mainly a mix of Germanic and Gaulish people groups, and is an ABSOLUTE monarchy in which the King can do literally whatever he wants with the nation, leading to a decent bit of resentment. Its neighbor, Ykrimi is basically an economic vassal of the Fraunkians, and is well known for its odd culture.
OTL Indonesia is home to a lot of former Latin and Goth kingdoms, the largest of which is the Empire of Androdammos (Bornean Byzantineboos, not that there ever was a Byzantine Empire), the Riminitasian Confederation (made of people who do not want to be gobbled up the Byzantineboos) and Far Gothia (wouldn't be a major power if not for its crazy high population). Like many places, these nations all hate each other and want to be the rightful heir to the Latinite Empire.
The league of Samuseen has disbanded after much of its members have ganged up and taken down Hoomikalaal, which now fights in another three way power struggle in OTL Australia between its new rivals the, Dapariki Empire (descended from Sumatrans) and the Mahindari Kingdom (mainly descended from Punjabis). These countries are bursting at the seams due to overpopulation, and struggle hard to sustain themselves (even going so far as to trade with the stinky whites to the North).
There are several minor nations once part of Samuseen, such as Aranlang, Pravattia and Great Papua, which mainly do their own thing, trying not to be wiped out by Androdammos or perhaps Hoomikalaal. The real nations in danger are the Malay pacific seafaring states, which are being picked off and genocided one by one. There has been discussion on a defensive alliance, but these often get stuck in the planning phases.
The power vacuum left by the collapse of the great empires has threatened to suck the world into conflict. The next century will certainly be one of more war, genocide and suffering.
This series is probably the most interesting thing I've ever seen on this forum. Keep it up!WORLD/CITYA continuation from: https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/map-thread-xx.492239/post-21261062
TL,DR: An ASB builds an enormous city covering all of Denmark and makes all of humanity live in it. Each real-world city is recreated as one or more towers in the World/City.
West Scranton, PA
Population: 37,240
Scranton, PA was divided into two towers during the Urbanization. West Scranton Tower is shown here. The ASB called the other tower "North Scranton Tower". It's not good at naming things, apparently.
Somewhat more cramped than Star Valley Tower, but still nice. The tower features a number of interior parks and gardens, but is not quite so open as Star Valley Tower. Generally, the ASB turned rural areas into smaller but more open towers. Denser areas were converted into more monolithic towers. The industrially suburban Scranton retained much of that feel when it was Urbanized by the ASB. This tower is actually four structurally separate towers which connect every 50 floors. This increases the total number of residences with a window on an exterior wall. Some residences have only interior-facing windows. People who found themselves in these units at the Urbanization were people who lived in homes and apartments with decidedly terrible views pre-Urbanization, so at least this was a lateral move.
Any paper companies brought along during the Urbanization have since gone out of business due to extreme mismanagement. The agricultural tower to the north of West Scranton Tower hosts a small, family-operated hydroponic beet farm.
Though I do wonder--what happened to the world outside of Denmark?
Thank you!
There are a few other posts I made concerning this idea (found here, here, and here), but basically the ASB's strange understanding of humans led it to believe there's something special about Denmark ("Happiest place on Earth!") and when people leave Denmark (now the World/City), their happiness must fall. The ASB prevents this. The rest of the world has become an accidental nature preserve, not because the ASB particularly likes nature, but because it prevents people from leaving the World/City for their own good. Most of the buildings around the world were recycled by the ASB for its own purposes (with some of the spare resources given to humanity). Space program assets were kept intact and used extensively by the ASB, while nuclear reactors were safely decommissioned, and their fissiles reused by the ASB in its space projects.
The Dome of the Rock, the Wailing Wall, St. Peter's Basilica, Masjid al-Haram, and other sacred sites were rebuilt by the ASB in the World/City, reducing some conflict and helping much of the population adjust to the new normal.
Haha! Not intentionally! My buildings look like Lego structures only because I am bad at art (Denmark is a happy coincidence). One reason I wanted to do this was to get better at pixel art.
Very Displaced: Bottom Text
Today's the day, isn't it?
Here's my submission for the cover of RoyalPsycho's scenario Very Displaced, similar to Nizam's cover above. While his map shows the world nearly a century after the original map, mine is more of a reboot, with the same overarching scenario but different details. Mainly, I shrank the giant space-filling empires and used the free space to add some smaller nations, normally ones with different origins. Thus, the sheer amount of genocide needed to make this world possible is slightly less, but this world is far, far from being pleasant in any way someone from OTL would recognize.
In North America, Etikurun still dominates, and is slowly enveloping the continent. They've already conquered Hueinatl and its colony in Tecuanitlan, and if these new lands weren't being such a pain to subjugate, then they might be moving on to Yoodojan, the last independent remnant of Hueinatl's sphere of influence in North America. Etikurun's internal problems are also a blessing to Nukanuka, a former Polynesian colony in the Pacific Northwest, which, given its isolation, may very well be one of the most pleasant places to live in this world (on a relative scale).
While the Eternal Kingdom of Mo'unui dominates South America, a few countries, including native Urunaqamana, European Raiolo, and African Ile-Ale are hanging on. Even then, Raiolo can't do much to stop Mo'unui from occupying the fringes of their territory. It's Mo'unui's way of reminding the others who's boss on this continent.
Europe isn't any better off. The British Isles were ground zero for the Hueinatl invasion of Europe, and the Britons and Irish were subsequently shafted out of existence. Up north, the dubiously named Northern Roman Empire has become a white version of Yoodojan, cornered and armed to the teeth, although they do have some allies to the east. I chose not to extend the Hueinatl all the way into Russia like in the original map, but the Mongol Gariad Khanate occupies some of that niche.
I didn't alter Tianren all that much. I did give them more control in the Mediterranean, and it's currently embroiled in a few wars with Hueinatl over its sphere of influence. So yeah, the Chinese and Mesoamericans are fighting over the Maghreb, it's a thing now.
Mamlak'alud also got dialed down. Still, the only part of sub-Saharan Africa not under ex-Middle-Eastern influence is the Jangalekatcy of Sowwu, an extreme theocratical state that would be more trouble than it's worth if it was conquered. Since the Goths stopped having to circumnavigate Africa to get to Asia, most of their ports and colonies in Africa have been swallowed up by the local powers. The lone exception is a little tidbit in OTL Mozambique, which has to play nice with its neighbors to survive. And the Aboriginal Australians are still in Madagascar, that detail was too cool for me to leave out.
Ignoring Oceania (mostly unchanged), all that leaves is Asia, which is just a clusterfuck. Some countries like Bota and Divanarolla were lucky enough not to get displaced or occupied by foreigners, but the same can't be said for so many others. Apprantack and Sierendivi are two more remnants of Europe's former presence in the Indian Ocean, two which have gone native to a greater extent. The Mon people, after being displaced by Celts fleeing Hueinatl, are now pushing into India. There's also Tenjiku, the rump state of what was once a stronger Japanese empire, which relives its more glorious past by toying around with the Deccan Plateau. And what happened to the Japanese Empire, you might ask? A quick glance at East Asia should make that clear. Aside from a few bobs and bits, the region is now occupied by European peoples, most notably the Goths in former China. Sunnurot, what was formerly Japan, is now Gutan-sponsored apartheid state. The native Yamato were never forcefully expelled, but they are treated as second-class citizens (if citizens at all), and Germanic settlers look the other way while Yamato families save up for permanent vacations to Tenjiku.
In summary, run.
Just run. This world is a hell on earth, full of genocide, war, and oppression, and tweaking the scenario only resulted lighter shades of black, which, as any artist will tell you, is still fucking black. But I can take comfort in the fact that my version of hell on earth looks interesting from a distance, so... score?
Anyway, I hope you all like this map, and don't forget to check out the other submissions and vote!
You are going for the Happiest Place on Earth, you said? Maybe try something like for Epcot. The original city, I mean, not the park. Already lots of blueprints for that, both for the city and the areas around it.
So, I've seen these cover contests posted a few times in these threads, but I'm not seeing where they actually happen. Are they here, on DeviantArt, or some other site?
We have a Discord server. I'm not entirely sure how invitations work, but if you're interested in joining, @Baconheimer is the owner. He could send you an invite.
Starforce
Banned
I made a flag map of the United States entirely based upon my own feelings and wants, not really meant to be realistic. It took 5 full hours to make this.
- California and New York are split up into several states
- Some native tribes are their own states (couldn't make all of them states since it would have been rather complicated / tedious to do)
- Florida is split up
- Lots of other new and alternate states
- Alaska and Hawaii aren't seen on this map
- Lots of straight lines due to laziness but imagine that isn't the case
- Credit goes to all the creators of the flags, I just found random ones I liked
- California and New York are split up into several states
- Some native tribes are their own states (couldn't make all of them states since it would have been rather complicated / tedious to do)
- Florida is split up
- Lots of other new and alternate states
- Alaska and Hawaii aren't seen on this map
- Lots of straight lines due to laziness but imagine that isn't the case
- Credit goes to all the creators of the flags, I just found random ones I liked
- Status